Linux System Admin.. is it worth learning?

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Hello guys and gals. The title is fairly self explanatory . I'm a beginner to computer programming and am looking for input.

Yeah. Skills acquired here can be applied to BSD/ SysV system admin as well, with some modification.

Programming in linux is good as it comes with a compiler and various other tools and libraries and debugging programs you can use without to much effort. Package management software lets you quickly and easily grab anything you need if you don't have it. Once you learn to use a shell, compiling from command line seems a lot less hassle under linux. You tend to learn more of the basic concepts of programming and networking under linux too just by the regular learning curve. Finally there's plenty of source code for programs on linux, and things are better documented.

I love Linux. It's costing me nothing to keep my day-to-day computers up to date with the latest features used by the founder of the Linux Foundation. Learn Fedora & Red Hat! It can teach you a fair bit about new ways web apps are managed too!

System administration in Linux is fairly straightforward—and can be learned in a couple of hours. If you download Samba by apt-get, you also have a powerful server management tool.

GCC is included in most distros—and you can write code in Vim and Nano. For large projects, though, this gets very tedious.

Thanks lads

hi greyasp!
According to a survey by The Linux Foundation and Dice, the top technology job site of more than 2,000 hiring managers at corporations, small and medium Businesses (SMBs), government organizations, and staffing agencies from across the globe" slightly more than eighty percent of companies that use Linux are making hiring Linux professionals a priority.

Survey says: Businesses need Linux IT pros, they need them now, and they're willing to pay real money to get them.

Why is Linux so hot? That's an easy question to answer. According to Dice, "Linux is increasingly becoming an essential part of modern day computing, powering everything from mobile devices to enterprise management to consumer electronics. As a result, the professionals who know how to harness its powers are maintaining their own dominance at the top of the IT job market."

To that, I can only add that if you look around, you'll see Linux everywhere. It powers the Web sites you visit, many of the smartphones around you, and increasingly big businesses, which rely upon it for servers and Big Data Linux in one form or another. Linux is becoming the dominant operating system and that means that's also where the jobs are.

Here are ZDNet articles on the findings of the survey:

http://zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linux ... -are/10358

http://zdnet.com/survey-shows-companies ... 7000011579


[Mod. edit: URLs made clickable]

The advantage with Linux and Open Source software such as OpenOffice is that the basic code does not change continuously with every upgrade as happens with Windows, MS Office and (I am told) the Apple equivalents. Its impossible to build any application in Windows and MS Office environment (using VBA) because when the newest versions come out, the application developed stops working. You can well imagine how that kills creativity. It forces companies to solve every computing problem by purchasing off-the-shelf standalone software. Its a bit like how cars cannot be serviced without use of specialised hi-tech diagnostic instruments; this eliminates all those basic mechanics that could fix any car in the old days with a few spanners. I am not a highly sophisticated programmer; I can do some fairly sophisticated macros in spreadsheets and I taught myself VBA enough to know its limitations, especially in a multiple user corporate setting. I am the ultimate 'spanner wielding mechanic' in the programming realm.

Microsoft make money by forcing upgrades to software. Its a bit like narcotics as well because once a Windows/MS Office user, the desire for things to stay the same makes its hard to make the switch. However, the disruptive effects of versions/upgrades slowly but surely reduces confidence/satisfaction and companies move over to Open Source. Its a matter of time before MS Office and Windows die. Personally, I think Microsoft know this and are tapping new markets for apps and suchlike.

I've picked on Microsoft a lot in this post but what I'm stating applies to any entity that tries to lock the consumer into a brand; it won't work in the long term.

Actually, Windows is developed incrementally as well. There are still pieces from the earliest NT based versions in Windows 8.1. Microsoft also support their operating systems for a very long time.

If you develop something in VBA running in a spreadsheets over multiple users in a company and the company has a variety of Excel versions in play, the application doesn't work across all the users. I learnt this one in a failed spreadsheet-based reporting tool I attempted to implement some years back. You have to settle on one version to make it work. As a consequence of that you have to upgrade everyone (or downgrade I suppose) so that everyone has the same version. The simplicity of code in Open Source irrespective of the amount of improvement over time is the beauty and allure of open source.

Having said all that, I am the 'spanner boy' in this realm of programming so if I have it all wrong keen to learn more about the topic. I have MS Office and Open Office on the PC but run Windows only. I have thought of experimenting with Linux but am somewhat unsure how it will work and I don't want to crash my computer

Works fine with different versions of both Visual Studio and Windows, at least. I have firsthand experience with this via TortoiseSVN.



The Linux Kernel has machine specific code (70% of the kernel is made up of this) for most types of modern hardware (at least if the CPU uses the x86-64 architecture), so I wouldn't worry about that.

Thanks but I don't understand what you are saying and thats not because what you write is difficult to understand. The issue is that as with many aspies, I have to know everything about something before I try it. So, to touch my computer OS system I would need to become a complete guru before I felt comfortable to do it. Of course, becoming a guru in something generally requires taking a chance at some stage and I eventually do take my chances but I get very stressed in the process. Picture me stimming madly and swearing profusely as I resolve the layers of technicalities required to reconfigure the computer and then whenever transferring something between open source and MS office formats (say a work file that I want to put onto my personal Linux-based Open Office computer, I would need to negotiate all the technicalities again. I'm not convinced that will be a simple and seamless affair. I know my emotional antics are all completely unnecessary but I can't help myself.

To this day I have a complete meltdown every time the kids unplug and muddle up the TV/DVD/Playstation wiring. They have learnt not to ask me to wire it all up again because the molten rage I develop is simply not worth the trouble.

Try it on a virtual machine to see if you like it. VirtualBox is free, and whatever goes on in a virtual machine, can in no way harm your host machine, given that the virtual OS runs in user space rather than kernel space. If you like it, I recommend that you divide your hard drive into two partitions, so you can dual boot.



Both Mint, Ubuntu, Debian and Slackware are fairly easy to install--given that you'll be guided during the installation progress. Because of court orders, Windows is actually very compatible with competing software.



Plug-and-play.

Excellent, thanks for the info. If you don't mind, I might pm you if I get stuck and can't get you via this thread? I am in transit presently (sitting in the Brisbane Qantas lounge presently) and the dreaded Christmas festivities will prevail for a few days so I might try Virtual Box etc sometime after Boxing Day.

Feel free to send a PM if you get stuck.

Yes, learning GNU/Linux system administration is well worth the time and effort. If you are a beginner (which I presume you are), start out easy with Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Get familiar with package management using apt-get as well as the /etc directory, which contains many configuration files that determine how your applications operate. Use the command line, which can be accessed by any terminal emulator. Common terminal emulators are Xfce Terminal (default on Xfce4 desktop), GNOME Terminal (default on GNOME desktop), lxterm (default on LXDE), and (my personal favorite) terminator. Try out different distributions, especially Fedora/RedHat-based ones. Also familiarize yourself with various desktop environments and find which one(s) you like best.

Once you've become familiar with Ubuntu-based systems, move on up to Debian. The main difference between Ubuntu and Debian is that Ubuntu comes pre-configured out of the box, which is what makes it suitable for beginners or people unfamiliar with GNU/Linux. Debian is a bare-bones, vanilla system that provides more flexibility in customization and configuration. Both Ubuntu and Debian use the same package management program, apt-get, with a few minor differences. A good way to improve your skills and learn more about GNU/Linux is to use the debootstrap program to install a Debian system from your current partition to another, unused partition on your hard drive (a decent howto for which can be found here).

Next, you could move on to trying Arch Linux, which would give you a better perspective of how GNU/Linux works. Once you've become proficient with the command line interface, and if you're up for an interesting, educational challenge, try installing Gentoo Linux. These tasks are not necessary for GNU/Linux system administration, but they certainly help improve your skills.

Finally, once you're proficient with how GNU/Linux works, learn how to write shell scripts in bash. The Bourne-Again Shell (a.k.a. bash) is the default shell on most distributions. Learning how to code in Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, MySQL, and C would make you a better sysadmin, but it is not of the highest priority. Most important of all, however, is to have fun -- a world of dreams and adventures with GNU/Linux awaits you!

P.S. Here are some useful links:

DistroWatch.com -- Has tons of information and links to all flavors of UNIX (e.g. GNU/Linux, *BSD). I check this site everyday, and I subscribe to the RSS updates.

GNU.org -- Home page of the GNU operating system. (By the way, Linux only refers to the kernel, while GNU refers to the userland interface, hence "GNU/Linux" is a more appropriate label than simply "Linux", although many distributions don't adhere to that custom.)

Fedora System Administrator's Guide -- Title is self-explanatory.

Debian Administrator's Handbook -- Self-explanatory.